Paying for Goods on Fiance before Goods are even delivered

kenwood33

I would like to know if there is an act or a law regarding Finance being took off me for goods not delivered or even made yet!. I went to a Furniture Store yesterday and ordered a Three Piece Suite. I paid a deposit as is normal, and took finance out for 36 months on interest free with the Black Horse. I was advised by the Assistant Manager of the store that my finance would start 1 month from the date of the signing of the agreement which was yesterday. I told the Assistant Manager that this was against the law because I was paying Finance in 1 months time for goods not received and an expected delivery date of between 5 and 7 weeks.

I contacted The Black Horse Finance and they told me that this was against the law and this practice is frowned upon, as "it would be unreasonable to expect the customer to pay any money until he recived the goods". I rang up the Furniture store and told them what Black Horse said but they still maintained that this is company policy, now I would like to know the Law Regarding 0% Finance and where I would find mention to this law please. If anyone could help me then I would be grateful. In the meantime this Furniture Company is still advising customers that they must pay finance 1 month after signing the agreement and this states in the agreement I quote '36 monthly payments of which the 1st payment will be made after the date we i.e. Black Horse pay the company for the good'.:mad:

hd7481

We have an agreement with Black Horse and we are due to make payments in Jan 07 even though our sofa was not delivered until May 06 (was 1 years interest free). Rubbish.

Bossyboots

We took out finance on our kitchen which was only due to be started upon "completion of the contract". The kitchen company first of all tried to collect payment after delivery even though we had booked for fitting as well. We only knew about this when we got a letter giving a starting date for the payments. A firm telephone call to the lender soon put a stop to that!

We were then not happy with the kitchen as numerous errors and damages occurred and we were not satisfied that the electrics were correctly fitted. Again, the kitchen company tried to collect their money before we had agreed the contract was completed and I had signed it off. Even once the repairs were done, I wouldn't sign it off as we were trying to negotiate a reduction in price as we had not received the standard of work we had been told we would get.

At one point the loan company said that as the work was physically completed they would pay out but backed down when I pointed out that the contract was not complete and in any event I was the customer and they could not start the loan without my signature. I also told them at that point that I was not going to use the loan anymore and would pay upfront the value I believed the job was worth. Not surprisingly they backed off then and agreed that they could not pay anything out until I signed the job off.

The moral of this story is to keep on top of things and keep in touch with Black Horse. Make sure they know you do not have the goods and remind them of your telephone conversation where they told you that you do not have to make payments until the goods are yours. It was only by keeping on top of the game that we prevented our kitchen company taking money when they were not entitled to it.

Just to complete the story, we had a stand off with the kitchen company for a year after the installation was completed because they would not agree a reduction in price and eventually stopped communicating with us. It was only when a new manager came to our local store and discovered we had never paid that the situation was resolved. We got a cheque for the amount we believed should have been deducted from the bill and then I signed the work off.

scotsgirl_3

if you look at the original document for the blackhorse agreement there is a bit where the dealer can fill in a date for the 1st ayment - if they leave it blank it defaults to the standard one month. go back to the dealer and demand they change it

Rafter

You have two contracts, one with the company providing the goods and one with Lloyds TSB for the finance.

Becaus of enlightened consumer credit laws in the UK, Lloyds TSB are jointly liable if anything goes wrong.

The fault here lies with the retailer though - they shouldn't process to the loan agreement or insert a start date until they have delivered the goods.

No doubt they are receiving the funds from Lloyds (less there finance costs) before making the goods in order to fund their business.

I suggest you complain to both head offices that this is wrong. The retailer is breaching advertising rules potentially by offering 3 years credit when you may end up with less. Lloyds is at potential risk because your credit agreement is being used to fund the retailer before the goods are even made.

R.